How to Eat Carbs for Strength, Not Fat | Mind Pump 2743

Key Takeaway

Find your optimal pre-workout carb intake by testing different amounts. Adam discovered 75-80 grams was his sweet spot - enough to maximize pump and strength without feeling lethargic. Test ranges of 30-100 grams to find what works best for your body, then pair with adequate water and sodium for peak performance.

Episode Overview

A comprehensive discussion on using carbohydrates strategically for strength training and muscle building. The hosts share personal experiences with carb timing, amounts, and sources while debating protein intake myths and exploring various health and philosophical topics.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Eat Carbs for Strength, Not Fat | Mind Pump 2743 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Carbs. It's the macronutrient that's not essential, right? You don't need them. Well, technically that's true. But what about if you want gains? What if you want performance, strength, muscle? I'm here to tell you carbs can play a big role. And there's a difference in how you use them, the kind you eat, when you eat them, all that stuff. We're going to talk about carbs right now. How to use carbs for the gains. Let's go. Have you ever tried to gain yummy without carbs? Yes. Yes, I did.

Yes. It's like I've used this example before, but it's literally you're playing your video game and they're like, "What would you like to do? Hard mode or difficult mode?" Super duper hard mode. Let's do that. No car. Okay. So, let's start here. Uh the data on strength. So, anorobic strength, power, athletic performance, ex except for some people will point this out. except for possibly the kind of endurance that you would use that it's kind of lowle long lasting. So, uh you you maybe not the case.

Maybe because there's data that supports that there is also the case, but maybe not if you're going to do like a super slow run for super long distances. Otherwise, uh carbohydrate intake improves athletic performance and strength. It just does. Well, even that we I mean we had one of the, you know, ultramarathon record holders on our show a long time ago, and what he does is run keto, but then when it comes to game time, he uses a fast sourcing fast using source of energy or fast, but then he still utilizes carbohydrates.

So, um, yeah, even in that situation you're talking about, there's still value to utilizing carbohydrates. That's right. But you know um and and and also this the the lifestyle effects right uh I I mean would you want to avoid entire macronutrient all the good stuff like having a good mood doesn't that factor in well and and there's data now that shows that going no carb for too long uh can cause issues potentially issues with your thyroid thyroid hormone. Isn't that what Saladino ended up coming out about too?

Uh well now Saladino who's like the the carnivore guy now advocates for some carbohydrate in fruit honey sweet potato even oh even sweet potato we're getting closer and closer to a paleo diet you know what happens you go on it for so long and then you start to experience negative effects you know and now carbohydrates are interesting though carbohydrates are interesting because what you'll see with athletics performance and even bodybuilding is this is the macronutrient that you can manipulate and play with to elicit certain responses.

Protein intake tends to be consistent all the time. Yeah. Fat intake tends to be relatively consistent all the time. Carbs is where you can start to play to get more of a benefit here or there based on activity. That's right. That's right. Uh and then carbohydrate sources uh make a pretty big difference. They do with proteins and fats as well, but with carbs um different sources can have a different effect on the body. So, you know, I'll start with you, Adam, cuz you really learned how to manipulate carbohydrates because you had to present your body on stage at, you know, 2% body fat.

Uh, what did you learn about carbohydrates for for that particular thing? Well, I mean, one one of the things I got to do was I did everything you could think of as far as how to use them. So, I ran super high carb diets. I ran super low carb diets. I I did back loing on carbs. I did front loing on carbs. What's back loing and front loading by the way? So that's where you basically eat a majority if not all your carbohydrates in the evening time would be back loing and then frontloading would be eating all of them in the beginning of the day and then none at the rest of the night.

Um and the biggest thing that I I learned for myself personally and I do think there there's a a massive individual variance because I I've I've manipulated this enough times with clients that I feel like everybody has their own specific number. uh like I I had nailed down that was 75 g of carbs for me. Now granted that might be different than today because I'm a different I'm a whole different body, right? This was a 75 for a meal. No, total like so like as long as I got 75 to 80 gram of carbs before my workout.

Oh, I see. I had the like and and where I'm going with this is that the difference between 80 and say 200 gram before workout was nominal. There was no difference. I didn't feel a bigger pump. I didn't have more energy. It was like So, it wasn't like more carbs is better necessarily, but there was definitely an optimal amount. So, it's feeling if it was 30, you could tell. Oh, yeah. If it was 30, flatter in the workout, didn't feel as strong, pumps weren't as good.

Um, but right at that like, and of course, there's like a range give or take 10 to 15. That's why I said 75 to 80. It was probably somewhere more like 70 to 90, you know, somewhere in there. But once I started pushing beyond 100, it was like and that gave me like the the maximum performance. Also, I could split that up in two meals. So, it wasn't I didn't feel lethargic from it. Um, so it was e and easily digestible carbohydrates. And then um post-workout, I always enjoyed having I noticed having less and again this is a lot of my this is all anecdotal, right?

This is my personal experience because I've done different things with different clients. Um, I noticed when I had a lighter carbohydrate dinner, I slept better. Um, it's funny. Some people the opposite. The opposite. That's why I said that's why I preface that. You have data on that, by the way. Yeah, that's why I preface that because some clients I've had where I load them up on carbs, they sleep like babies. Other clients, uh, not so much. They do much better on like a high protein, like vegetable type of meal for their last meal.

I do really good with that. So, I found that prioritizing most of my carbohydrates, regardless if I was in a really high state of eating, I've been as high as 600 700 gram of carbs in a day and as low as probably about as low what I would consider low carbohydrate for me is like 150. Although obviously in competitive dieting, I've pushed low. You also went keto for a while where it was zero. Yeah. Yeah. So, I've I've I've done everything in between. Um, and keto, what what I found with no carbs in the keto diet, uh, really good for appetite suppressant.

Those that have listened to me talk about, uh, my sugar addiction and and how hard that is and has been for my entire life. I never felt less of a pull towards sugar when I was on the ketogenic. So, I found a lot of value because of that, but I definitely didn't have the same oomph in my workout. I couldn't get the same pumps. I desperately tried to gain uh like because I was in the middle if you remember that was when we first started the podcast.

You still competing? Yeah. I was still you know full into you know meatthead atom at that time and so very much so cared about not losing any muscle trying to gain and I really tried to do it uh you know through the ketogenic diet and I just could not I couldn't get enough calories because it just suppressed the appetite so well. So, I found a lot of value in the lower carbohydrate when you have somebody who struggles with cravings a lot. So, if you're a person who struggles with craving sweets and carbohydrates a lot, the higher fat, higher protein approach tends to do really well with that.

You may lack a little bit in performance in the gym, but if you still can work out. It's not like I didn't want to work out. It was just it just wasn't the same as when I was carved up. So, and this is to me all the nuance that matters when you're coaching a client is it's less about, oh, what's the best strategy for fat loss or oh, what's the best for muscle pumps. It's more like, okay, what's the client's goal and how does that individual respond to the way I I feed them carbohydrates and and that would dictate all the things I'm talking about.

I'd say probably if I were to in a nutshell because the variance with carbs is very interesting. you don't find there's a variance with everything. So, I'll be clear there, but you don't see this variance uh this wide variance like like you do with carbs with like proteins and fats. Again, there's variance in everything. So, I'd have clients that would do a little better with lower protein, higher protein, but generally high protein and fats, you would still see a variance, but it's not, you know, wasn't this huge variance where I could have clients that are great on low and others that are phenomenal.

Well, to your point, fats are essential. Well, to your point, everybody has a a low threshold for those two. Those are essential, right? So, it makes sense. It definitely makes sense. The one thing I would say that the most important consideration with carbohydrates is digestibility. I'd say that's number one. Uh, which is a strong consideration for all food, but carbohydrates, boy, can some of them make you feel be some irritators in there. Totally. Some of them make you feel terrible, others make you feel amazing. So when picking carbohydrate sources ideally it's like which one makes you feel the best digest digestive wise even that s is nuanced because I mean at least our experience right how I mean how many clients have you coached that even have a good connection to something that's not really digesting well with them I can't tell you how many people are like oh I'm fine I do good on bread always eat that yeah until Yeah then I cut it out and they're like oh my god I feel I lost all this weight.

It's like reintroducing a whole other thing. Yeah. And so, uh, you know, I'm such a fan of, you know, if you're a listener, if you do this on your own, if you have a coach, uh, or if you are a coach doing stuff like this where even if a client claims that this, oh, this is I like to eat this way, this purpose, like, hey, let's try these different things. Cuz many times they're just unaware. They're unaware of what better feels like. They're adapted to that that is.

You just don't have a contrast. You don't have out of the matrix. Yeah. And so you just and and you and you don't have crippling problems from say the bread and so you know maybe you don't have a full-blown gluten intolerance, but it also may may not just be easily digested for you and you add that to a little bit of a stressful day and you're hold on to bloat and water for a day and you think it's fat. Yeah. For me, some some carbohydrate sources will me give me a crash.

Others don't give me a crash. Uh I know for me for athletic performance, strength, muscle gain, um then I need to eat some good carbs, starchy carbs. Typically rice, potato, fruit is okay. If I want mental sharpness, uh then lower carbohydrates tend to work better. So if I'm going to do like a podcast circuit and I need to be sharp for, you know, all day cuz I'm doing three or four podcast ketones, then I'm going to go lower carbs. I also notice a big difference s too on my training regimen on how those foods are digested.

like uh I can get away with more pasta breads and things that let's say I I have a little bit of an intolerance to uh when I'm training hard. When I'm training hard, it's like my body is like needing calories. It feels like it just kind of and if I if I'm not and I have something like that, it seems like it's easily upset or I have issues with it. So, I think that even matters like so especially when you're talking about people that may not have a full-blown intolerance, but that the food just doesn't totally agree with you.

And it's like when I'm when I'm strength training and needing a lot of these additional calories, feels like my body go ahead, it plows through it and and he's up. When I don't need those extra calories and then I I I pile that on there, I can feel a major difference. Here's what's today's program giveaway is mapsabolic. If you want to win, leave a comment below this video the first 24 hours we drop it. Subscribe to this channel and turn on notifications. If you win, we'll let you know in the comment section.

Also, if you need somebody or you want somebody to help customize a reverse diet plan for you, if you're interested in reverse dieting, go to reverse dietcall.com right now. A 45minute call with a personal trainer, a mind pump personal trainer is 50% off. It's only $49 and they'll customize the next 90 days for you. Again, it's reverse dietcall.com. Here comes the show. Here's what's interesting too with carbohydrates is that a majority of heavily ultrarocessed foods are carbohydrate uh based. Yeah. Now, it's not because kind of, but it's not entirely because carbohydrates uh are the best when you're trying to create a hyper palatable type of food because fat fat fat, sugar, you know, fat and salt is part of that, right?

Palatability, uh although it's extremely complex, um like very like food scientists understand this, the the three main ingredients if we were to break down the the macros of h of of palletability, it's it's salt, sugar, and fat. So fat and salt are a part of this as well. But the the big reason that carbohydrates make up a majority of ultrarocessed foods because they're cheap. So I can make and produce large amounts of uh of these foods and to be inexpensive. And one of the the pieces of the formula for processed foods is uh is convenience and affordability.

So like a box of you know uh high protein snacks even though their snacks are still they're going to be expensive because protein is more expensive. So when people cut carbs and notice a big difference often times it's because they've reduced their ultra their processed food consumption often times. Not all of it because carbohydrates are the least satiety producing anyway but a lot of it's just they've just cut out um ultrarocessed foods. But that being said, like if you want good performance and gains, like you're trying to build strength and muscle, you're reverse dieting to speed up your metabolism, you're, you know, you're listening to the podcast and you're we're it's resonating, you want to try it out, you're you're better off eating carbohydrates and stick to whole natural sources, sources that are minimally processed like white rice, potato, sweet potato, fruit, uh, quinoa.

Um, and what you'll find when you eat those sources along with other whole natural sources is you're not going to overeat. You'll do great. Yeah. And you'll see, especially if you eat the protein first, and you'll see uh phenomenal results. Uh, the other thing, the other reason why often times people will promote low carb so much is they have an un underlying digestive issue, gut health issue that they haven't solved yet. Okay? So if you have SIBO uh like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SEO which is fungal overgrowth or a parasite which you don't know about or gut inflammation.

Uh carbohydrates tend to make those worse. So you suddenly will cut carbs and be like oh my god I feel so much better. This was me for a long time when I was trying to figure out what was wrong with my gut issues. I went low carb not because it was the best for performance or anything else but other mainly because it was the best for my digestion which ultimately meant it was the best for me and that that's because the glucose is feeding the bacteria right it's just I would eat them and it would cause problems and going no carb was would just felt but isn't that what's the reason right so it's like that food's getting converted over to glucose the glucose is feeding feeding the bacteria they're fermenting they're causing issues you're getting bloat or digestive distress and stuff like that um and so you'll hear this sometimes You'll also see and this is something entirely different uh where people will go low carb because of autoimmune issues.

Now there's a lot of speculation as to why uh people will get benefit from this. Uh it might be that carbohydrate containing foods um have compounds that can cause an immune reaction or more likely to cause immune reaction. But I'll also point to protein sources that are high on that as well. uh egg whites and dairy uh being chief among them. Nonetheless, um there's such an individual variance with this. But I will say like if you are huge difference for me. Yeah. If you're like hey what do you mean?

But when I was low carb Yeah. my that that was one of the things that kept me going on the ketogenic diet too was that how good my psoriasis was. Yeah. Right. And it was very obvious when I started to reintroduce to carbohydrates, especially processed ones. Yeah. There's also a huge difference in that. like rice doesn't seem to do it. Sweet potatoes don't seem to do it. Uh eat something out of a box or sugar or something like that. And uh I'm 30 minutes to an hour later I'm already scratching myself.

There's something there. There's got to be two. Like you're mentioning feeding the bacteria. I wonder if the beneficial bacteria versus like less beneficial like in whatever you're you're you know predominantly growing in your gut. I wonder if you have a bacterial overgrowth. What it means is what's dispiosis meaning that the the wrong bacteria there's too much of the wrong bacteria too little of the right bacteria or the the the ratio of the bacteria is off. This is really loose everybody. This is like super I know I'm really oversimplifying because there's the very complex microbiome is super complex but essentially that's what we're talking about.

So now you're feeding this bacterial millu uh with what they tend to eat a lot of uh which is carbohydrates or sugars. They also eat fats and and some proteins but carbohydrates will feed. And so what you do is just kind of blow up and strengthen this uh reinforce this dispiosis. And so suddenly you got bloat. This is what happens. People like man when I eat carbs I get super bloated. Um and so this is kind of the issue. You could also have um you know certain overgrowth.

I can't remember. I don't know why it it uh it's women will oftentimes get this. Candida. Candida. Oh yeah. Candida. And candida is like feeds on carbs. Feeds on carbs. And so you'll you'll eat carbs, you feel absolutely terrible. But if you treat those issues, you work with some of the gut health specialists, treat those issues. Then you go back to eating carbs and you're totally fine. So it wasn't the carbs that was the issue. It was something else. Yeah. That was the issue. One thing I'll say though is uh one thing you can play with and we're splitting hairs here now, but we do have a lot of fitness fanatics that listen to podcasts that love splitting hairs.

Carbohydrate timing is pretty awesome. Uh if I have uh you know a decent carbohydrate meal a few hours before my workout with good water intake and sodium, I'm getting the best pump of my life. It's amazing. If I don't, it's a big difference. I remember when I figured that out. Yeah. Like it was I mean I don't know what a decade of taking no explode and all the all the all the pre-workout pump stuff that I could possibly and I mean I can I can feel those I mean I noticed a difference but when I and it wasn't until bodybuilding so imagine I'm 30 years old when I finally unlocked this was like when I knew the value how much I had to I knew I had to manipulate water and so and I didn't uh what everything that I had read going into bodybuilding like I knew how unhealthy it was for what these guys are doing.

And I'm like, well, if I train myself to drink like three gallons and then I cut all the way down to say a half a gallon, I'm still in a really healthy place of water. And so that was my strategy. And so I began really pushing water like I'd never pushed water before. And of course with that came taking electrolytes in at the same time. And holy [ __ ] the pumps are crazy. The pumps were insane. I'm like, "Oh my god, this whole time, all I need to do is just drink a bunch more water." I mean, it makes a it and I it makes a huge difference like like the carbohydrate thing.

I had got I figured it out down to the the exact amount like if I had 70 to 80 grams of carbohydrates and I put a half a gallon of water in before my workout. Okay. Before and then drank another quarter to half during the workout. Great. Yeah. Just incredible. It's like a new steroid. It is. It was like better than the best pump product on the on the on the market. Juice water. You need it. H2O. Anyway, I um Wait, wait, wait. Since you're splitting hair stuff, can we talk about the video that I can I have Doug play the video for you so we can talk about talking about splitting hair science?

Yeah, it's not even razor blades. I mean, Doug, play, play the video I sent over to you. He was on Tom Bill. He was on. And the reason why I'm bringing this up is because I actually got quite a few DMs and I also wanted to talk about this because I had remember reading this this science a long time ago and I used to tout this information and then I got a lot of people the ironically from the science community that's bro science that's [ __ ] It's not like the protein disappears and you don't use it.

And so B so let play it for Justin and everybody so they can hear Doug and then I'm going to have S explain uh the nuance of this or the why this doesn't matter because I did get I mean this is on Tom Tom's show. Tom's got and Peter is awesome. Yeah. Exactly. That's why I love him. I mean if if I had a do if I had to you know pick the doctor that I wanted it would be him. You know that he would be the guy I want to work with.

Solid information. Yeah. But don't you This is where it gets really crazy. If you're eating really small amounts of protein, like 20 grams at a time, you're not going to get muscle protein synthesis because the liver is going to the liver basically takes first dibs on the protein and under goes glucanogenesis. It's just going to make glucose out of protein. So, if you just trickle tiny amounts of protein in, you're not getting muscle protein synthesis. I'm turning it into glucose through a really inefficient process. Yeah.

You're just the liver is turning it into glucose. If you eat tons of protein, and the limit based on the literature seems to be somewhere between 40 and 50 g in one sitting. Once you exceed 40 to 50 g in one sitting, the excess just goes into glucanogenesis. So, so here's the thing with with uh studies like this. So, you can measure markers that will point us in a direction like here's a marker for fat fat oxidation for example. So, fat oxidation happens when you burn body fat.

If you go on a ketogenic diet versus a, let's say, balanced diet, both calorie deficit, you're going to see more fat oxidation in a ketogenic diet. Does that mean you burn more body fat? No. No. Uh, you don't burn more body fat. Muscle protein synthesis, you can measure this and what you're measuring is the building essentially it's it's adding you're building proteins in your body. So that definitely can point to building muscle. Now, here's what the data shows. If you eat 20 grams of protein 10 times a day, or you eat 40 grams of protein five times a day, both 200 gram of protein, or you eat 200 gram in one sitting?

Well, I'll get there, but I'm going to use these two comparisons. Is there going to be a difference in muscle growth and athletic performance and strength? No. No difference. Yeah, but be care. I mean what you just said right there it doesn't counter at all what he just saying because he says 4050 the limit. You're right. Okay. You could go as high as 70. Okay. Now there is it there is seems to be an effect on how long you wait between protein feedings, but it's probably four or five hours.

It's not every other hour. So you could have breakfast, lunch, dinner and have the same total amount of protein. It's not going to make a difference. It's not going to make a difference at the end of the day. the there seems to be an effect uh like I said with like if you wait a long time like 200 grams at one sitting versus eating three meals there might be a difference uh at the end of the day um but but the whole like if you eat 20 grams and you eat 40 for protein synthesis more than that it turns into uh glucose um at the end like when you look at the end result it doesn't work out that way.

So the reason why I also wanted to talk about it is because and again I'm going to bring my anecdotal evidence here, right? So this you can throw it out the water for those science nerds that want to see 50 science or studies to support what I'm saying. But my personal experience with how I section like I saw I've always seen better results when I've broken my protein up than eating a 200 gram because I've done that before. I've had times where I'm like so behind on protein.

I'm like the protein shake plus the big steak meal or everything like that and I get a Yeah. Gee, I wonder why. How did you feel? I Well, so that's probably the digestion process of that, I'm sure. And and nothing felt better than these nice 40 to 50 gram meals broken up six to eight times in the day. Uh just my body felt like it used it better because there's also inflammation with all that at one sitting and you just don't feel good. Will that play a role in muscle building?

Maybe, you know, definitely. But what he's saying makes it sound like if you don't eat more than 20 grams of protein, you're not going to build muscle. And if you eat more than 50 grams of protein, you're wasting the protein. Exactly. Wrong. That's not true. Somebody who ate 20 grams of protein, you know, ate 10 times in a day is fine. They're fine. Somebody who ate 50 grams of protein four times in a day is fine, too. Same amount of protein. And the data will show that.

it doesn't it's it's not going to make a difference at the end of the day when it comes to building muscle and burning body fat just like the fat oxidation studies with ketogenic versus you know balanced diet so really although I do again I think that uh then then that's probably what I felt and probably the most important thing for someone to take away because I've had a lot of clients that have asked this before um that struggle with getting protein and they're you know 120 gram shy yeah at 7:00 at night you know and they struggle with this like, hey, should I just not do it or should I stuff the 120 down and you got to ask yourself like, well, we need to hit that protein intake really bad, you know, but is it worth the gas or disrupt?

Exactly. But is it but you know, am I going to be bloated afterwards and then on on the toilet and it's just like if that's the case, but then then I've also had other clients that I've met that can can crush 80 90 grams of protein and totally fine. Yep. So I think that to me the reason why I wanted to bring it up is so we could discuss that a little bit because I do think there's some importance there for the individual to to be make become aware of like how you handle eating 80 gram of protein in one sitting versus the strongest considerations are digestion.

Yes. Digestion and is it fit your lifestyle. That right there is by far the biggest consideration. All this other stuff like I love guys like Peter. I think he's brilliant, but the the risk of people like him because he gets a lot of attention uh being an authority, being a doctor, is they really get people caught in the weeds and then people miss the forest for the trees and they just so now you got the average person just getting into fitness like uh like this. That's why I want to bring up because I I must had eight DMs from the average fitness person, not crazy like that that listen to us a lot, listen to a lot of things he says and go, "Whoa, this is crazy.

I this is this is doesn't sound like stuff you guys have communicated and you know get to your point this tends to send some people be like oh well [ __ ] well that's a waste you eat more than that I'm just going to convert it yeah like fasting fasting causes fat oxidation to go through the roof but at the end of the day it's the the calories make the difference with fat in fact some studies that show that fasting might be not as effective because of the potential muscle loss but but again that's even splitting hairs so you got to be careful when you look at like these these measures uh that tend to lead to the end result without looking at the end result because at the end of the day the end result is what matters.

I don't necessarily care about what he's saying unless uh the end result is more muscle, less muscle, better performance, worse performance. If if if I'm looking at a measurement at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. It's the result. Who cares? Well, and or the digestion is the piece, right? Like so if I have a client who's just like, "Yeah, I mean I I eat 60 grams in a sitting and feel totally fine." But I heard this thing that like I had gastric bypass patients who had to eat only 20 grams of protein in a meal cuz they couldn't eat more.

And so they were eating all day long because they had this tiny little pouch of a stomach. And so and were they not building muscle? No, they built muscle just fine. Yeah. you know, and I uh I along the bodybuilding and muscle building, I looked something up because there was this article I read that talked about the mortality of pro bodybuilders. So, if I say pro bodybuilding, I think most people would think not a healthy sport, right? The amount of drugs that they use, the crazy dieting, the extreme dieting.

Um, and you just look at a pro bodybuilder and I think it screams to the average person that's probably not healthy, right? You look at them, you're like, "Oh, that doesn't look doesn't look that's extreme." So, I'm like, "Okay, are we just like, what's the actual data?" I pulled it up. I got it saved here. What's the actual data on pro bodybuilding and its mortality? So, pro bodybuilding, can we guess? Like, it's a bit more protective than we think because so much muscle or Well, I So, here's what I did.

I looked up pro body pro not bodybuilding pro bodybuilder. You have to be an IFBB pro. Okay. Okay. So like the top level. Yes. You compete all the time. All that stuff which you know that's the that's like the highest level. Uh what is their mortality compared to the general male population? And then what are the worst sports for mortality? Is bodybuilding in the worst sports? No. Definitely. Football is well. So I'll tell you it is. So I'll tell you one of them. So pro bodybuilders uh have a 34 to 50% higher uh rate of of mortality than general male population.

Oh, higher than general. So general male. So like and again remember these guys are using crazy drugs. Well, there's also something else I want to add to you to that when you're done. I was waiting for you to finish that. There is a very high rate of uh addiction and drug abuse in the bodybuilding community in addition aside from aside from steroids. You're right. Yeah. You painkillers. Yes. Oh god. All drugs. Yes. As long as they're calorie free. And to get you think I'm joking. No, that's a very very very rude inject.

I was having this conversation with some friends of mine because we were talking about like our past and this and that. These are some Christian friends of mine and and they were like, "Do do I would have never thought you would have, you know, used substances like you're so into fitness." I said, "Uh, I wouldn't have used calorie containing substances." I said, "You you weren't you you hang out with bodybuilders drinking?" Ew. They won't drink. Yeah, they're more worried about getting fat than they are about, you know, not to not to beat the dead horse with my whole issue and stuff like that, but that was the first justification of using uh the Vicodin recreationally was that I could just have one beer and that and then it was so I would have consumption 100%.

That was the terrible logic compromise my 24 year old brain used when I was on the button. Yeah. So, it's very very uh So, you got to factor that in too right there because I it would be interesting The overall lifestyle is not. Yeah. Yeah. Like I bet I bet you know what would be interesting if you did natural pro bodybuilders. Oh, I'm sure it's great. I'm sure they're okay. I bet it would make a huge difference. So, check this out though. I looked up what are the five deadliest sports by Okay, football's top five.

It's not. No, it's not. No, really. Well, think about boxing. Think of the crazy sports that cuz once I say some of these wings suits Oh, well that's the the wings suit guys. Wing suits number two. Oh, that's because they they die in the in the sport. Bro, bro, wings, check this out. At per 100,000 flights, there's two to 300 deaths. Two to 300 deaths per one. Bro, have you ever seen Did you see the wings? Did you guys see the documentary on them? At the end of it, didn't they all die?

Yeah, there was like the documentary. They had all the names and they were like, "This is how many died during the recording of this?" Like, there's like 70%. Yes, dude. It was like, "Holy crap." You know what's higher than that? Than than the wing suits. Yes. I thought that was the highest. No. Base jumping. Oh yeah, base jumping. Base jumping is 431 deaths per 100,000 jumps. So one out of 232 because of equipment failure, collisions, low altitude errors. What about like deep d Oh, like uh cave diving.

No, it's not. It's not cave diving. I'm sure that's in the top 15. You know what number three is? Mountaineering. Mountaineering. Yeah. In You want to know what the death rate is for Mount Everest? This is crazy. I didn't know this. Oh, it's like very few make it snacks a body of That's why it's such a big deal to climb it. Forget about make it. How many people die? One out of 10. That's what I mean. That's why it's such a big deal to to climb it.

Bro, you have a 10% chance of dying after all that training everything to go up Mount Try to climb Mount Everest. One out of 10. I'm willing to bet though a good percentage of that 10% of the people that think they could just go climb it. Dude, they had such a problem at one point where there everybody it was like like too many people were doing it once where they all got stopped like it was like a traffic stop because like there was too many bodies uh that were up there that they hadn't brought down yet and so it was like blocking the path.

Oh my god. Yeah. Isn't it common that on a on a Everest climb that someone will see a dead body on the way? Isn't that like isn't that That's what I've heard. Yeah. I the one guy recorded while he was doing it a dead body was just sliding down the mountain and he just recording as he Oh my god. Okay. Okay. Wait. So we got wings suit. We got uh high base jumping mountaineering. What's number four? I wouldn't have guessed number four. Are any of these Okay.

Almost all of these are pointing to like the extreme outdoor. Okay. So they're all like stuntmen or so like climbing trees or sawing [ __ ] Something weird of some. Oh no. The oil the oil riggers like those guys. Well, that's not a sport. That's a joke. Oh, yeah. That's a crazy that' be a crazy sport. What do you do for fun? You don't get paid. What the hell's wrong with you? Big big wave surfing. Number four. Oh, wow. Big wave surfing. Wow. I know, right?

Isn't that crazy? And then number five is uh hella skiing. This is where they they helicopter you in. See, now you ski down. I'd like to see these are all dying in the sport. Yes. So, which is different than bodybuilding like because of the sport, right? So, yeah. like the aftermath of it. Yeah. I'd be more interested in like traditional sports where they rank uh Well, I bet because those are all everyone you named are the reason why they're so high because they die doing their thing.

They die. Not a lot of not a lot of people die doing football or die doing this these other sports, but because of abuse on their body, they have a short. But what's crazy about this is as I'm reading this, yes, it is common to see bodies on Everest. I knew that was true. Crazy, dude. is. So, as I'm reading this and thinking this morning, as I'm going through this, I'm thinking to myself like over 200 bodies are estimated to remain on the mountain. Yeah, they just keep them.

I swear there was like a traffic jam for them to get up. Yeah, they can't get them. Wa. Yeah. How eerie would that be to be on a climb and like having to step over a dead body? Oh, sorry. That's not cool. So, you know, here what I'm going to say. So, as I'm going through this, I'm thinking to myself like, you know, the average person will see a pro bodybuilder and they would think, "Oh, God, you're putting look what you're doing to yourself. you're putting yourself at a high risk.

We Whereas a base jumper, mountaineer, big wave surfer, wouldn't you have that same stigma even though it's far more dangerous? Like you meet a big wave surfer. Yeah. I don't I think if my child decided to take a big jumping, I'd probably uh encourage bodybuilding. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I don't know, bro. Those are those are so extreme. That's why it's not a great example because I didn't know big wave surfing was so dangerous. Think about it. those big waves slamming you into the the ground, the shore, getting out.

Yeah, big wave surfing is different than surfing. Surfing is one thing. Jet skis will pull you out. There's no way. I wouldn't do it. No way. All right, I'm going to go back. We talked about the pump earlier. Do you know what creates a crazy boost in uh nitric oxide for the pump? Red light therapy. Massive. No, massive. A lot. A lot, dude. So, now we have our pre-workout water juice, bro. is that I never did. So I never thought I have yet to do this.

So I would love to red light a body part on my workout and then go hit it. Did you notice though? Have cuz you use it relatively consistent. Don't you notice you get a little bit you feel a little bit of a pump afterwards? Like I just I just feel I It's a after recovery. Yeah. Like after I was done. It's normally after showers for me. So it's like a nice I feel like I've sat in a tanning bed. It's so weird. It is. It feels like I got a little bit tanner.

I have a little bit more energy. I think the nitric oxide in the skin too comes out a little bit. So you get a nice color, you know, coming out of it. Did you know that studies will show 20 to 40% faster glycogen replenishment? 20 to 40% faster. So imagine you're an athlete. Uh let's say you're a cyclist and you're training twice a day cuz it's like intense and you know one of the challenges with training multiple times a day is the second workout you need to get replenished so you can perform again.

Imagine now you, you know, you're eating, you're doing all the stuff you're supposed to, eating your carbohydrates, but you red light your quads and 40% faster. Imagine, imagine stacking creatine, coal plunge, and red light, right? All before workout. Oh, yeah, dude. Oh, yeah. You're zipping. Oh, yeah. I want to try. I would like to do it. So, you're doing it today? You're working out today? Yeah. I'm not doing all that stuff right now. No, no, no, no. My workouts today are very pathetic. No, I'm not.

I'm I'm probably not going to Well, actually, I might do some real easy stuff. I didn't get good sleep last night. Okay. Well, I was going to say terrible sleep. What if you did this? What if you just Just want to point that out. I told you. Just want to point that out. I knew it wouldn't be as good. No, it was terrible. It went from I had a good my first good night's sleep back [ __ ] 5 days. Thanks, S. Keep going. I'm trying to just trying to help.

Way to bring it up. Yeah. So, wait. I've been waiting to tell him that [ __ ] over here over here all grouchy. Hey, you want to go the details? The advice. You want to go to the details about this? What is the advice? No, it was We don't need to go into that. I'm curious. Trust me, it was it was it was better. It was better than what he was trying. It was better for health, but it was terrible for my sleep cuz I I'm on a whole stack of things to try and get myself to sleep right now.

And I' I'm And that's like the next hill to climb for me is slowly coming off the melatonin and all the other things that I'm I'm stacking to put myself to sleep. And so, he was trying to be he was trying to give me good healthy advice. My wife looked at me and be like, "Are you sure you got your first night of sleep? You sure you want to all of a sudden start doing that already?" Like, "Well, you know, S brings up a good point." And so, and then, yeah, I paid for it.

So, sorry. All right. What you s What I was going to say is today if you work out your arms, what if you red lighted one arm and then work both arms out and notice see if you notice a difference. Well, so the stranger who did that? Was it Was it What's his face? Orange glass guy. Dave Asprey. Dave, thank you. Orange glass. I knew exactly. Yeah, I knew Doug knew right away too. That wholeing guy. Yeah. Yeah. I I think he's the one who did the the one for recovery one leg and not the other if I think it was him.

I don't remember but measured a huge difference in the recovery side. So, um I mean it'd be interesting to see the reverse of that. I haven't heard anyone do the reverse to get a pump. Ooh, I wonder if uh red light therapy before sex would be a good idea for for men who who need help with erectiles. Seriously, that's a nitric oxide issue. And you could red light yourself there. In fact, it boosts testosterone because when you get the red light on, it does raise testosterone.

That's the studies will show that. That's when we use it. Oh, it's right after shower first thing, first thing before we go to bed. Yeah. Both. Yeah. Yeah. So, both her and I. Oh, no. You guys are having sex. No wonder that boy Jude would love that commercial rather than like improve your sex life by tenfold. Try that move. I mean, we don't do it for that intent. It's just that's how it works out. Like we put Max down. I typically get in the shower first.

I red light afterwards. She's in the shower. By the time she gets out of the shower, I just leave it on. She goes, "Right." And then it's like that's kind of our routine. Roxan, you know, you put on your red light. I'm good. You guys want to hear some cat and dog? An interesting cat and dog fact. Yeah, you guys are dog fans, right? Oh, yeah. People fall into one or two categories, right? Either typically either a cat or a dog person. I put up with cats, but no.

Yeah, dogs. There's dogs. There is a big difference. Everybody I mean pets are great, but come on. Like cats, they're not going to do anything. I know, but they're not. They don't care about you. Yeah, I know. They just don't anyway. Some people like they're fluffy when they're hungry. Maybe. But check this out. Way less maintenance. Check this out. That is true. Studies show dog ownership reduces the risk of dementia by 40%. Cats, no difference. I mean, no difference. Cats don't give a [ __ ] about you.

That's I think you just Yeah, you just get the same love. Well, there's a there's way more of a I I'm not There's a lot more interaction like a lot more you have to kind of you got to go walk with them. You got to you got to do a lot with them. Social interaction. Yeah. I mean, I know it's terrible. Everybody freaks out, but I can do this cuz I have a kid now. But a dog is more like having a kid than a cat is like having a kid.

Oh, that would make sense. Totally right. I mean, that's a fair comparison. Put way more energy into it. Well, yeah. And you could literally you can you can leave for a week from your house and your cat is fine. As long as it can go to the bathroom and it can you go to work sometimes, you come back and your dog. Yeah. They go out and murder and and you know, if we've missed like a a feeding or whatever, they just go murder something and eat it.

I mean, that's I think that's one of the appealing parts that where why you like people like cats though is because of that because it's a it's in a companion kind of that's around the house. And there's different breeds, right? I remember I told you guys when I had my crazy rag doll that I had shipped from New York when I had a cat and it was like had kind of doglike personality. So, it would it'd hang around me and it would sit on my lap.

You would have a cat [ __ ] from New York. Yeah. I mean, they've ruined they've ruined my like working out experience. I'll be honest because I got them downstairs like in the garage and you know that's where all my workout equipment is and you know late at night they'll bring in something and eat it and then there's like endrails. They never eat like a colon and it's always like a colon like right there go on my I have to like mop it up and and it's just you know and it's I and I want to encourage it because there's like vermin that they're destroying and it's awesome but it's like that's a part the part that I can like I we Katrina is not a cat person.

I'm not really either but I would consider for our house is for that cuz we have being backed up to the like the forest like that we get all kinds of snakes. It's inevitable. Yeah. Yeah. So, just to have you know what what we have that we have to we battle right now which is really interesting. I think it's the raccoons that do it that they uh poop in the pool. No. No. That would be weird. Raccoons poop. They raccoons poop. Raccoons poop in the pool.

They um during this season right now is um they they dig up all the grubs on my lawn. So they leave holes. Yeah. So it looks like it took me forever to figure out what that was. That's raccoons. Yes. I get that sometimes. Yes. They're they're they're digging for the grubs. uh underneath the underneath the grass. Yeah, I told you about the skunks. That one tripped me out where they actually dig up like yellow jacket nests and they eat them. Yeah. Yeah. I was like, that's kind of cool though.

And I don't like them normally. But that was sick. But this sucks though. Like the only way I found out was cuz I just thought it was like something was messing up with my lawn. I'm like, man, why is my lawn gophers or something? Yeah. Or gophers. And I'm like Katrina and I do like a walk uh through our neighborh like, "Oh, look. They have the same problem on their lawn." And that's that's weird. How are we all having the same issue? That's kind of random.

Talked to our the our exowner who used the home. He's like, "Oh, yeah. No, you got to during the season this time, you got to put this like like repellent stuff on there and it'll keep them." Have you guys seen uh some of the wild pigs up in the hills? Oh, dude. We were driving home. My in-laws. Yeah. Bro, we were driving from a friend of ours house live like kind of somewhat deep in the cuts here, but nothing, you know, nothing crazy cuz there's not too many here.

But we were driving home. They're like, "Watch out for the pigs." I'm like, and he's like, "No, seriously. If you hit it aggressive, dude, bro, it was huge. It's like this big. Yeah. Like, oh my god, they're honory and they destroy stuff. They're like werewolves once they like, you know, are out in the wild and and you know, when they're domesticated, they're all pink. And that's why Texas shoot machine gun out of tusks like just everywhere. Yeah, dude. They're crazy. Wild. They're mean. Yeah. I got I got some more uh some more studies for you guys.

I looked up we today's sponsored by Rock Recovery. So, it's a rehab facility that um if you go on our link, they're giving away sponsor scholarship, excuse me. But I looked up data. Do you know what the odds of success are going in a inpatient recovery facility? And success is measured by like 5 year, 10 year relapse. Do you know how much better your odds are when you go in a facility versus try to do it on your own? Oh, wow. No. You triple your triple triple triple the potential that you're going to stay on.

I thought it was still really low. It's like 50%. Oh, versus like 10. Wow. I didn't I didn't realize that. I actually thought it was still an average of like all I thought it was actually still really low. I know that it's a it's it's definitely one of the remember that um documentary Body Body Counters or body brokers. Body Brokers. Thank you. Um I thought they covered that stat in there of like how unsuccessful a lot of them are now. A lot of them. That's why I think obviously what what drew us to Tom and Ben and our relationship with obviously we had no one had no idea that that would turn into some sort of a partnership.

We became friends first. They've been huge fans of the show forever. We got to know them and it was them who like made us privy to like what they're trying to do in that space is trying to disrupt the the traditional way which is it's a really um So here here's something that's interesting too. So, working with someone like them will double to triple your odds. Uh, over time, an addict uh has a 75% chance of succeeding, which I didn't realize. I thought that addicts just the rate of relapse just like, oh my god, you just forget about it.

That's actually a lie. It's actually a lie. Most people that struggle with addiction eventually will succeed, especially when they go uh to therapy. And that'll just triple your odds. That's encouraging. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, if you're struggling, like just get some help, dude. It'll make a huge uh huge difference uh with your, you know, with your odds. Anyway, you guys want to hear something terrible? Oh, really terrible. Did you guys hear Have you guys heard about what they're So there was this reporter that was that is reporting because she's been interviewing these people that are talking about things that happened in the in the early 90s in Sievo that are just wild.

So there were human safaris what done in S. So Sievo was like a like was like a war zone. Human safaris. Yes. So let me explain. So Syria was like a war zone at this time, right? So there's like all kinds of chaos going on or whatever. And there were wealthy uh people that would pay these military, you know, people, mercenaries or whatever that would be able to go over there and for money they would go and they would shoot people. What? They would shoot people.

They would shoot people where they would civilians. That's sick, dude. Civilians where they and they would pay. It says here in chilling detail there. This is a case that war tourists from Europe, Canada, and Russia and in US would spend between 70,000 to 88,000 back then to take part in a manhunt. And they would even pay extra to this is terrible to shoot kids. And this goes in with like a lot of the stuff I've heard about some of these like like Rothschild kind of families where they they had, you know, people over and and parties and and they would like run them in the forest and and hunt them down.

Like stuff like that you hear is like folklore. No, this was crazy when you when you hear something like that and I mean remember the movie The Game? Yes. Yeah, The Game. And like you just think that's something so absurd and crazy. It's like some of that's probably birthed from true stories like that stuff like that really used to happen or that was the one where they would go get homeless people and they would strap money belts around them and it have I don't remember if it was like $100,000 or something like that in the money belt and it's like you get to keep the money if you survive.

So dehumanizing and it was then you went I can't this is so evil. People question whether or not evil exists. Like come on man. Do you since you went the Russian oligarchs did, didn't they? They they signed up for like a fight in those pirates off the coast. Well, that was where you could pay money to pay to shoot pirates. But that's not as bad because they're criminals. That's you're still a psycho. You like sign up to go kill people and they're like, well, you're justifying cuz it's a pirate.

They're bad people. Okay. Yeah. These were civilians. These were like you would go up in the mountains and they'd give you sniper gear. This is what the article said. And you would snipe civilians and you pay money. That's crazy to be able to do this something there. I just went since you went this way and Doug loves when we talk about politics. Um do you think this it feels this way to me, but I could be off base cuz I'm not as deep as you are in all this stuff.

It feels like we're starting to wake up to the left and right [ __ ] No. Do you feel like that? It feels to me that it feels to me I'm seeing even like uh because I obviously I follow a lot of the party I yeah I own I I lean more towards conservative values right so a more of the stuff I know I watch both I I watch more that and I'm starting to see even like patriot type pages and and so and conservative type people calling out a lot of the [ __ ] on on the right even it does seem like there's I care so much less about this than I used to, but when I see it now, it it still seems like the same game.

So, what I mean by that is um well, it's the same. They're doing the same thing. I think now there's so many more phones and eyes and information that can travel so quickly that like there's people like if you're looking for being privy to what's happening, you can find it. I'll I'll put it this way. There are uh the people who have a lot of influence and power that many of us don't even know who they are uh and but they have a lot of money and power and influence and they they see the trends and they can grab a hold of what it doesn't matter where the trend goes.

They'll manipulate that trend. And so what you had was this huge swing to the right. And so what it's appears to me is that they're just manipulating that now like they did the left when when they did the left like they did when when Bush was president when it was conservative and he a lot of that was insane. All of it leads to just more Yeah. So it's I my point is the the game has not changed. The game is the same, but it feels to me like we're waking up more to it.

It feels like more people and I actually think a lot of the Epstein file stuff is what's doing it. Yeah. Because a lot of what Trump kind of ran on and even maybe somebody that's on the the middle would consider themselves moderate was like, "Hey, he's going to go he's he's pulling for us to get so we could pull the the curtain back." And now all of a sudden he's playing the game of not pulling it back. And now again, they're they're talking about how it's going to come out again.

And what it seem it's almost obvious to me and I would think that a lot of people are smart enough to read read between the lines is that if we ever get to see this list it will be so redacted and anybody who's really pulling any strings will be the people they'll probably have a couple of there'll be a couple people that get uh what do you call it sacrificed that will go oh my god he or her or whatever Mike Johnson's already said that like um there's parts of it that may be classified still and so that can't be released.

So there's already this qualifier that's like sent out like, "Yeah, so we'll get the unclassified version of it, which what is that?" Like everything's blacked out, but like two sentences, you know? You remember the stunt they pulled? They had all those like conservative influencers come out and they all had the release it. They all taking pictures. We caught it, you know, like all black just a bunch of type stuff with blacked out. I mean, so but I mean, they're doing it. They they've gone so hard and to Justin's point, there's so many phones out there and there's so many people that are going down the rabbit holes and connecting dots and it's like it feels to me that more and more people are realizing way too many lives that both sides of the aisle are actually on the same team and it's us versus them left versus right.

But there's two sides of that, right? It's a double-edged sword. More phones, more information, more opportunities uh to manipulate. And by the way everybody, if we ever get to the point where we trust nothing, which is where we're getting, I know that doesn't mean we woke up, what that means now is we trust nothing. And what people will demand is an arbitrator of truth. Because we can't live in a world where we trust nothing. We need somebody or something. What is real? What is honest? Answer that AI.

And we're going to want an Yeah, we're going to want No, no, no. We need someone to like certify that this is real. And who's going to do that? Government. So, where are you guys on the dead internet thing? Do you Where do you stand? Oh, I brought that up a long time ago. I think it's definitely taken over. There's there's not going to be a lot of real information. I just I think it's going to happen so much faster than everybody thinks. Listen, I'll tell you guys what Forest Frank just did a clip.

So, he's a popular Christian artist, um, but also just popular across the board. And he just talked about how the top two Christian songs right now are AI. That's crazy. The number one and number two songs in America in Christian music are AI. He gets on there. Now wrap your brain around Justin's been calling AI as the Antichrist since day one. And then it's like, well, you know what he said? He said it's not inspired by the Holy Spirit. And he's talking about it. And some people like, yeah, you just want to sell records.

I mean, I I think uh AI is interesting. We're what we're do. At best, here's what we're doing. At best, we are creating uh an image of ourselves. Yeah. And who are we? Broken, messed up things. But your average person and that's at best, but it's going to be worse than that. Your average person is using it like a genie. Like it's it knows all. Like it doesn't lie. It doesn't like have hallucinations. It doesn't like and that's already been proven half. Yeah. You understand that?

It makes up half of the content. Yep. This spirit that that drove uh the arms race with nuclear weapons, which if you look back, why did we do that? Oh my god, we have more enough nukes to destroy the Earth seven times. over the spirit that drove that which is the other guys doing it. I got to do the same spirit that's driving AI and everybody knows. Meaning is meaning that we have to do it because if we don't they will. But it's a bad thing so let's do it.

Right. Right. But it doesn't matter. We need to we need to have know as much and have as much control of the bad thing before the other guy has that much control because then he can use it against us. But it's going to kill us. It's totally going to kill us. But we got to do it. We got to do it. Is there is there an optimistic view for you out? Yeah. Yeah, dude. It's uh but but now I'm I'm a Christian now, so my optimism is based in that, dude.

It ain't based based on humans. It ain't based on what we're going to do. Humans Yeah. flawed to begin with. I mean, how you I mean, you're you're deep in the in the reading right now. Like, how many times in history have we had major revivals? Oh, uh there's been some modern ones that have happened. Um Yeah, that was like in the 70s and 70s. Yeah, you had you had you had quite a few. There's a big one happening right now. U but uh it's supposed to get a lot worse before things get better.

That's typically what it takes. But even if I take, look, if I take out my my faith and I just look at this like as a secular individualist, like if I go back two years before I believed in uh and and you know, I had my faith, I would look at this and go, "Yeah, this I don't I don't we're not going to I don't think we're going to make it out of this one." I look at as the rise and and fall of empires. Like it it's cyclical.

It's very like we just never had the main story so much damage. Jesus, please don't say like Roman Empire file stuff. Of course, like why would like that's the thing. I mean, it's it's possibility like why wouldn't it be? It's happened throughout history. And I feel like we the only thing we can reference is actual historic events. And so, you know, like empires, they get to a certain saturation point where they're too powerful. Oh, they got too whatever the technology is at the time they, you know, get to a certain degree and and then it's it's this I don't know if it's an overconfidence or it's it's a lack of like spiritual understanding or like any kind of like tampered like like morality there where it just like goes spreads itself too thin, it implodes.

Let me just point out to the silliness of this. Okay, so this is uh grant this is now given that we can create artificial general intelligence because some people will still debate that. I think it'll happen in the way that that in the ways that we can do it. Right? So, we're going to create this. Our goal is to create an all powerful artificially generally intelligent computer system that we completely control that we'll do what we want. You know how silly that sounds? That's like an ant being like, I'm going to control Adam.

You didn't even know how. So, it's just stupid. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. That's the best case scenario. We think we're gonna do it. Is it gonna happen? It's just gonna be benevolent. Yeah. It'll do what we want. And then what's the second option? It's gonna love us. It'll be smarter and more powerful than us than we could ever imagine, but it'll be so benevolent. We're not even benevolent. No, we're not basing this off. We're based off human nature, which is like what?

Who built it? So, it's a reflection. It's us magnified, you know, to a level we haven't seen. So, do you not see uh as we go down this rabbit hole uh it that people waking up to that and going like, "Oh, shit." Like, this is I mean, this is you know when people are going to wake up, dude. It's too late. I I don't know. I mean, I think this is so this is why I keep going back to the the plugged and unplugged theory is that I I think uh I think it'll get worse before it gets better.

I think it'll take, you know, I think there's a I have a lot of close people in my own circle that are just are just naive to all of it. You know what I'm saying? And then I have like full-on adopters and then I have fullon like so I have all of it in in in within my circle. I think the it it'll take it'll take enough like really bad things to happen for the naive people to go like, "Oh [ __ ] this is crazy." And then it'll force them to kind of choose.

Do they go all in on the people that are like, "No, it's better for us." plug in people will allow like the unplugged to have their own space in society or they want to control and manipulate them. Of course, you have to pay a fee. Here's that's only my concern. I I have I personally have faith in in the the unplugged people cuz I think a lot of those people will be the people that will be heavily armed and a lot of land and a lot of like so good luck trying to go get those guys, bro.

Yeah. I don't think so. Well, as far as what Justin's saying is leave alone. Like I don't see the AI full AI full adopt people trying trying to oppress now whatever you believe with how crazy AI gets in control it gets the people who are who are adopting it fully I don't think they're like oh let's go oppress those people cuz good luck cuz I think those will be the wrong people to try and oppress those will be the most probably in my opinion those will be the people your last fighting group yeah exactly like those are the let's think about the person who's all who's all bought into AI and the person who's likely not to like you're just in visual.

Yeah, but they won't let you go anywhere. So, you're going to have this limited space to to to move and and I don't know. I guess my concern with that is like it's so much easier cuz if you just play this out in terms of like how like government likes to act and like what they like to dictate. It's like we love we would love to dictate whether or not you could travel, whether or not you could buy certain things, whether or not you can go into this area or not.

And it's like, you know, that magnified. And here we'll give you everything you want. You just do what we tell you. We'll give you everything you need. I guess that's my concern. You're going to feel so good. You're going to have all the great feelings and crazy weird stuff. And here, just plug in. Don't worry about it. We'll give you everything. You don't need to do anything. How many people are going to turn that down? Not too many. So, we're going to need some plugged in people on our side.

Yeah. Like helping us strip. You know what's wild about this? Probably going to happen in our lifetime. Oh, probably. Yeah. Come on. Yeah, I dude I I think I I really don't want to be doing this podcast on AM radio in a basement. We're going to have a ship. What are you talking about? All right, guys. Pirate radio. Yeah, this is the rebellion, you know. Yeah, everybody, I'll I'll definitely be starting that one. I'll see you guys in the goologs. I mean, hope hopefully uh we've we've we've grown big enough that we have a good enough group of people that got some land and got some bunkers that we can come crash out at if we get to that point.

For sure. Start making some friends. Yeah. So, cuz I know we haven't built that for ourselves and you make me want to. I don't think we realize how fast it's coming with with Moore's law and in five years it's going to be weird. Five years. Okay. Moors law has been crazy the last 20 years pre- AI. Okay. pre the like I I shared on I shared that stat the other day like what printing press did as far as how much double the information then when television double like it's like at we we are doubling the information at like the an infinite amount faster than we were just a decade ago like so when your bra your brain is still stuck in the past 40 years of your life of oh yeah this this invention comes and that invention comes it takes about this long like every day we're already at the point where it's making better music than people.

Yeah, that that's art. It's already making better music. We're here right now. The 3D printing revolution hasn't really begun yet. I think that's going to be the next like really crazy Oh, AI is going to print you what you want. I need a drug that'll give me this, that, and the other. Here you go. That's going to be weird. Oh, yeah. Well, that that's going to be interesting because so much of our GDP is based on consumerism, right? And that's a big part of what's props up this crazy, you know, 30 trillion, whatever trillion dollars that we're in debt or whatever is that GDP always continues to grow.

And so we justify this crazy debt that we have. But when all a sudden 3D printers can can print a lot of anything and everything that you want and you don't need, you know what's even crazier, guys? Even if we did the even if we achieve the utopia that some people think where we have everything we want and the AI serves us and does everything we want, that will be hell for most people. No purpose, no meaning. That's why you're you're you're what's your black and white show you share.

I love that. I love that story. It's the best Twilight Zone. That's the best story ever. It's it's so good. It's such a great a great story because it's so true. you think and uh you know I guess mo most people that have u reached that level that they thought maybe when they were a kid or that thing that that drove them really young that have that have know that whether that was writing the number one bestseller people we've talked to whether is that the guy who said once I got to $100 million that we know like there there's the everybody that we know that has set some crazy lofty goal that they have that has driven them their whole life to achieve when they get there.

Mhm. It's unhappy. That's right. So, it's of course of course if like the worst thing that could happen to us is give us everything that we want, you know. All right. Here we go. Doom and gloom. And on the positive, government cheese. Element is an electrolyte powder that is amazing. the right amount of sodium to get your muscles to contract, hydrate your body, give you better pumps. No sugar, no artificial sweeteners. It's the best one. Go check them out. Go to drinklement.com/mindpump. On that link, you'll get a free sample pack of the most popular drink mix flavors with any purchase.

Back to the show. First question is from Firefly. How to scale back on cardio when you've done intense endurance for 15 years? Real easy. This is really det. Yeah, you just stop, you know. No, honestly, so if your goal is to maintain a certain level of endurance or you got a competition, then this becomes a little bit uh more of a measured approach. But if you're like, look, I got to back off and focus on strength training, the faster you cut this out and start strength training, the faster the results will happen.

Yeah. So, you literally stop. I think the fear here, I mean, if I'm going to guess, the fear here is if I cut back on all this cardio, I can gain all this crazy body fat. In which case, uh, no, I've had clients like this and I've had them go way down, do a little bit of strength training, not increase their calories yet, we'll wait till a little later, and then just suddenly build strength and I mean, the other fear is the the psychological addiction to it, too.

Good point. Good point. So that's why this is a little bit hard to answer without like talking live on air with this person to kind of feel out who are you, right? Are you the like so addicted to running that you, you know, you run your how many, you know, 20 miles a week or more or whatever it is every week and you've been doing it for 15 years and you're psychologically addicted to that and so you're ask and us telling you to rip the band-aid off and just stop would be like ah right, you know.

So, but you're right. The faster you do it, the more So, sometimes with someone like if that's this person I I'm just speculating now. Um I a lot of times I'll allow them to to do the same amount of time just it changes to walking. It's like what the when you would go out for that hour run or however many mile run like go ahead but now I want you to put a podcast in and walk. You still want to fill that space or or strength train then walk for the same the same amount of time that you would go run for.

replace that with strength training and walking and that'll serve you pretty well. So, if you're someone who was like an everyday person, like a great program for you would be like mass 15 with a long walk would do you really well and still give you that like I'm moving still getting a lot of steps. and not like completely like moving away from the you know that's kind of I think yeah a lot of it's a discipline of it and I think that yeah people people who have done something like that for that long like it's ritual at that point and so it's like losing your ritual and like you think it's a healthy practice like so you can you could transfer that I think and and do that in a way where you give your body a little more rest.

Yeah. I had a client like this uh now I I was their trainer so I was able to coach them through the process but I had a client like this who kind of hit a wall and um we cut it down sign I don't remember exactly what it was but it was something like 25 miles a week and I brought it down to two a week like really really cut it down immediately did a couple days a week of strength training and immediately immediately saw strength gains it's like her body was waiting just hanging on for and she just started building muscle and feeling amazing.

But I was there to coach her through the process. That's so what you're saying is such an important note, too, cuz here's where that won't happen to you is if you're doing 20 miles and you cut back to 15 miles and you introduce strength training and you're hoping you're going to see a bunch of gains, 15 miles is still a lot. So, in order to get the results to have that kind of profound results that you're talking about, you really got to you got to really make a major shift from being an endurance athlete to a strength athlete and go all in on the strength athlete.

And then hopefully those those strength gains and that muscle you build is motivation enough to be like, "Oh, I can let go of this addiction to running." But if you ease off of it, I mean, it's a lot like addicted to anything else, right? It's going to it's going to take a lot longer for you to see the results. If you cut down all your running and then decide to fill it with hours of lifting and you're just doing tons and tons of weights and overtraining there, it's a different it's totally different approach.

Next question is from Laura Hawking. How can we train our central nervous system to keep up a little better? And is there anything that can be done immediately after really realizing we went a little too hard? So in parenthesis there it says feel like napping mid mid lift lately. So you're just overdoing it. Yeah. The first thing you would reduce uh with your workouts is the intensity. The second thing is the volume. And the last thing is the frequency of your workout. So intensity is how hard, volume is the total amount of let's say sets that you're doing.

And then the frequency is how often you're lifting weights. But you got to cut it down. Cut it down immediately. Uh and make it a drastic cut initially. Uh because you could always work up a little bit, but you know, cut everything way down. Cut it in half at least. Yes. And see how you feel. And is there anything you could do immediately after realizing you went a little too far? Yeah, you or too hard. You take a day off or a couple days off. Like the rest, nothing will replace rest.

There's really no trick, no hack. Yeah. No bio hack, no massage or therapy or anything that replaces just good oldfashioned time length that you need just separation, you need to heal. The other thing I'm investigating is uh sleep and caffeine usage. Yeah. cuz this tends to happen too with a chronic uh undersleeper and caffeine user. So if you're somebody who chronically undersleeps and you replace that with a bunch of energy drinks and pre-workouts to try and make up for it, I tend to notice an adverse effect when I reach a certain point of caffeine like crashes.

Yeah, I get the crashes. Like I'll go to my workout, I'm like yawning or I'm just like oh my god. It's like oh my caffeine's way too high and my sleep's not right. What's that? We have a guide, right, Doug? It's a uh your um recovery rescue guide recovery rescue. Yeah. And that's at mindpumpfree.com. Mpumpfree.com. Check it out. And that that's a week of uh like accelerated recovery. So, it's a free guide and it breaks down what you do every single day for an entire week to get your body back on track.

Next question is from Functional Health Jen. How do I know if I'm actually getting stronger or if it's just my central nervous system adapting, especially if I've been training for 10 or more years? It's the same thing. Yeah. It was like that's Yeah. Maybe maybe the question is if I'm actually building muscle or if it's just my So when when you're moving a weight, let's say, yes, you have these muscles that are contracting that are like the the the machine that is operating, but you also have a central nervous system that fires those muscles and can fire them with more force and fire them in uh better coordination and synchronicity.

And so they're both involved in building strength. Um you bigger muscles contract harder, but the central nervous system plays such a massive role. Uh in fact, I'd say the central nervous system probably plays a larger role uh in strength. But they're both you're stronger, you're stronger. That's just the fact. It doesn't really matter. If you're asking about muscle, uh the strongest correlate to muscle growth is strength. So if you're getting stronger, even if it is just your central nervous system adapting, if you keep moving down that path, that almost always results in in larger muscle fibers.

And if you're actually real testing and noticing that you're not building any muscle, yet you still that's a nutrition thing. Yeah. So there is a possibility and we see this uh where you do see somebody's central nervous system adapting getting better of movement because they're practicing it more frequently and so they see the benefits of the strength growing up but then for some reason when they go test their body fat test they're they're not building any more muscle and then then that's a direct connection to not enough nutrition.

You're just not feeding the body enough to grow and build muscle. And so that's a just a a calorie deficit and you need to increase calories a little bit. Next question is from FitLife with Jen. How do you feel about posture correctors? My son has really bad forward shoulders and he has been doing some exercises to correct it, but he brought up this posture corrector and I'm curious on your guys thoughts. So maybe you could Google I already know what it is. I think I think it's like holds your shoulders back.

Yeah, it's terrible. It's what he's doing with the exercises. Excellent. You do not want a tool that he wears that puts him in correct posture because he will then become dependent on that. It's the same argument that we make for why weight belts for the average user is not ideal because then you become dependent on the tool for the good posture for you and able to do that. So you want him to train the muscles to to get to hold himself into posture. If he relies on a strap that pulls his his shoulder blades back and his posture upright, then he becomes dependent on that and he weakens those muscles that are responsible for doing Yeah.

So, in other words, so you you wear one of these. Yeah. So, it's what we thought, right? So, if you wear one of these, it holds you into what appear to be uh good posture, but the very muscles that that you need to strengthen are now being relied upon even less. Yes. because you're now relying on this these straps. It will exacerbate the problem. It'll actually accelerate the weakening of the muscles that have an issue. You'll actually make his posture far worse to the point where it'll become painful uh for him to not wear the posture correctors and he'll develop really bad issues.

So, if this is like a fast track to atrophy, right, to to muscle weakness. So, posture corrector is never almost never a good the move would be for him to do more chest more of the corrective exercises. Yes. So if it sounds like he's already doing some of the So this is this is where you hear us talk about the importance of frequency in in priming and mobility moves that we talk about over just like intense workouts. So if what he's doing right now is he goes to the gym say three or five times a week and that he spends 10 minutes or 15 minutes each time he goes to the gym doing these corrective posture movements but then all day long he sits on his phone or at a desk or at a computer then it's going to be hard to make a lot of progress with only doing it that that infrequent.

he needs to be doing it every day, all day long, every time he can think about it. So like if he's So if he's doing moves like say prone cobra or something like that, he would benefit from doing that five times a day for 2 minutes more than he would, you know, three or four days a week for a 15-minute session. So the frequency of those posture correcting moves is what will move him in the direction of better posture faster. using a a tool will actually exacerbate.

But again, like wearing something that is replacing uh the muscles that you the very muscles you want to strengthen will only accelerate the weakening that's happening those muscles. Basically a cast. They should call them posture destroyers is what they should call these. They're they're absolutely terrible. Those don't sell as well. No. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. One of the keys to fat loss is protein. It's true. If you're not eating a high protein diet, you're not going to burn as much body fat as you can.

So, today's episode, we're going to talk about the smartest ways to use protein for fat burn and to build muscle. You got to watch this. I wish I understood this earlier in my career. I think it was probably almost 10 years in when I started to just focus on this with clients. I knew it was important, but I don't know how important. Yeah, I also did I knew it was important and but I also